


Afraid of Everyone

by literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Doomed Timelines, Drabble, Drama, Dream Bubbles, Flash Fic, Gen, Microfic, Purple Prose, Sadstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-02
Updated: 2013-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 06:09:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/745188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte/pseuds/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From doomed timelines, three trolls gather to discuss their mistakes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Afraid of Everyone

**Author's Note:**

> "Afraid of Everyone." The National.

Your name is Terezi Pyrope, and you have been killed by Jack Noir.

Presumably, it is just punishment for your cowardice, but Karkat didn't deserve to die. Behind harsh words, he had the most soft heart out of all your friends to an almost ridiculous extent. He would probably forgive someone for murder. You should have stopped Vriska - even if she's your sister. Your partner in crime, your wicked witch, your bully, your friend. You hate her.

But. You have made a mistake by not making one, and so you are dead. So far, you find the dream bubbles to be more emotionally draining than death. 

“Why would I do that?"

You and they are nothing alike, all three standing next to each other. An arm's length apart, you know you three look fucking ridiculous. The universe doesn't want nor need you and them; dead kids have no reason to be here, to exist in the frayed fabrics of space's black skirt. Underneath the pale, blue-white shade of the dream bubble's spacial skin, you and the two trolls look like nothing but lost ghosts. Which, in the end, you are. Funnily enough, they're the only company you've found in this dream bubble. Your afterlife is already looking so promising - not.

Your limbs lay listlessly at your sides, but your clothing lifts with the wind. The humid, tired breeze, familiar in this kind of Alternian landscape reserved for lowbloods, moves your cherry red skirt around your legs. Left and right, left and right, in confused fluttering. Faintly, the flashes of your death appear behind your eyes - Karkat flailed like a wriggler, and you probably did too - but you can't fight the memories back when you have just entered the afterlife. Regret will probably stick around for a few dry sweeps until you forget how you ever breathed.

Eridan's cape lifts behind him, and, while there isn't enough wind for it to fly, there's enough wind for it to hang. Aradiabot's metallic skirt sticks to her ankles; she can't feel the breeze.

There's dust in the overall ambiance of everything. Dust on the shards of Aradia's hive, each block thrown aside in an awkward yet dried pose; dust on the edges of your boots, as well as soil; dust in the air, in your nose, in your throat, in your lungs, in your blood; dust in each movement as it upsets the painting of a brooding landscape.

Neither Aradia nor you answer Eridan's question. Aradia turns her head in three shaky steps, the sallow illuminescence of her blue-rimmed eyes flickering voicelessly over the seadweller's face, but he doesn't meet her gaze. He stares down at the rubble in front of him, while, at his side, you kick a pebble at your feet with your pallid red boots.

“Why would I?” Eridan repeats. There's no reply. He grinds his teeth, furrowing his eyes and bundling his fists.

“I am sorry,” Aradia speaks up, “I should not have told you, I suppose.”

"It's not your bloody fault I'm a murderer,” Eridan snaps. Nobody speaks as he walks off into the rubble.

You hold back a comment with a sad smirk. "At least you could," you feel yourself wanting to say. Sadistic irony is your kind of thing.

Rocks crunch and pop underneath his heavy footsteps. There isn't anywhere he can storm off to for dramatic effect, so he finds a relatively smooth block and sits himself down on it, resting his head in his arms.

Eridan's fins flicker against his cheekbones as he looks back at you and Aradiabot for a response. You stand there, motionless, as he huffs, “How did I do it?”

“You knocked Sollux out. Then, you preceded to kill Feferi when she stood in Sollux's defense. Kanaya tried to stop you, but you killed her, as well.” Aradia's lips barely move as she talks. Her bottom lip merely opens downward, and, from the box in her throat programmed with her voice, thinly conscious words spill out.

Eridan pulls at the edges of his sweater. “And then?”

“Eridan,” you mutter. You don't want a recap of these events. There's been too much death in the last portions of your memories; you're sick with suffering.

“And then?” he presses.

“Kanaya revived as a Rainbow Drinker. Karkat took Sollux away from the scene before he could wake.”

“Was Terezi there?” At the sound of your name, you raise your eyes from the ground to the figure among the vine-swamped ruins.

“No,” you breath, “But Karkat was. Karkat was there.”

"Kan...” Eridan mutters, “and....and Fef?”

“Yes,” Aradia tells him.

Eridan sits there for a rusty minute with this information. You can almost feel the weight of his personal disappointment thicken the air, and you indistinctly wonder if his self-loathing reflects yours at the moment.

“There is no reason to mourn the mistakes you yourself did not directly make,” Aradia says.

“Oh, shut up,” Eridan grumbles tonelessly.

You shouldn't say this, but - “I didn't kill Vriska. That's a mistake I didn't make.”

Aradia turns to look at you with her whitened irises. “Then what would the correct decision be? You did not kill Vriska. Was that the correct decision?” Ah, morality. Does Aradia still understand the concept of morality in her wired state, having not fully lived in flesh for so long?

“No,” you answer.

“Killing her would not be the correct decision. Not killing her would be incorrect. What is the correct decision?”

There are a thousand things you could tell her, a thousand timelines where you could have prevented the death of Karkat and the duel between Vriska and Jack. The sheer amount of lives you have spent in space clutters your head, and you are reminded of every mistake you have made that could have caused Vriska to be the way she is. All your fault. All your fault.

Being a Hero of Mind is shitty.

Instead, you let out a muffled sigh. “Saved her.”

Eridan and Aradia turn their heads down as you begin to sob. Your face wrinkles up, and you lift an arm up to wipe away teal tears. You want to rip off your FLARP outfit and all its blood stains, but, instead, you just tear off your gloves. They fall softly to the musty ground. The pressure in your chest fluctuates as the frustration drains down your cheeks. Your knees crumble, and your face falls into your scabby hands. This isn't your time to highlight your weaknesses, though. You have no right to do this in front of....can you even call these two your friends?

You're a fucking failure as a friend. And now you're dead and surrounded by failed timelines.

“I killed Fef,” Eridan whispers from his place. His voice has lost the shine of its accent, left to the bare necessities of his vocal eccentricities.

Silence settles among the trolls, except for your harshness as you weep into your palms and Eridan's cracked breathing. Aradiabot makes no sound, still in her stance. Both tactfully ignore your rising sobs.

In this moment, Aradia considers the situation of the three. You come from a doomed timeline in which your hesitation resulted in your death, Eridan from another offshot world where (according to him) “Gamzee shit out his sanity and slaughtered Karkat before moving on to me and the others,” and she from a timeline doomed by her own design and choice. There isn't much to do in the dream bubbles except mope, even if friends are found and bonds are renewed. There is no point in this assorted afterlife in which life has dried out and left the raisin bodies of flawed companions. Just poignant memories for the stale continuance of death to talk over again and again, again and again.

And, in this moment, Aradia feels fear. For no specific reason except for everyone. What is the responsibility of a robot who has fulfilled her minuscule use? Here, in the darkened remains of what she once lived in with her lusus, Aradia knows no purpose. Where is the future for a prince of ego, or a crying little girl who drew dragons on her walls because she wanted to be a mighty lawyer who talked equally with His Honorable Tyranny?

In the horizon behind the toppled walls of Aradia's hive, unsure footsteps approach you and the two. You cannot hear them over the ragged heaving of your shuddering airways, and Eridan pays no mind to the sound outside his own digesting thoughts.

“So,” Eridan mumbles, breaking the skin of the silence, “how come you never re-build this shitty hive?”

“Ghosts have no need for shelter,” Aradia responds.

The figure far behind steps closer. Their face is barely visible from this distance, but Aradia jerks her head in their direction. She notices them. They stop – realize – and continue forward.

“What did you even do all that time without a hive or a...or a lusus?"

Aradiobot ponders for a moment. “Listen to the dead. Wait for the game.”

“Must have been boring,” Eridan comments.

“I was too tired to be bored.” Aradia's eyes cling unwaveringly to the approaching person. They're close enough to her hive now for Eridan to look up and recognize them.

You rub a hard knuckle in your eyes, hiccuping. This position hurts your leg muscles, but, if you stood up, you would topple over into the dirt. You hate this place. You wish you had landed in a different dream bubble. One without people, so you could wander through the desert seeking nothing and thinking nothing because there's no one to remind you that you're you.

“Oh, hey.” There's the sound of crunching gravel as Eridan stands up.

“Hey.” That voice is familiar. Sniffing, your face and your nose slick, you look up at Ampora. Aradiabot watches you without a word.

Your hair is sweaty and rattled with wind. To stable yourself, you sink a hand down on the dirt and place your left on your platformed lap. Once always kept in prime condition, your FLARP uniform is now muddy and soggy. Your eyes are red and more dead than you yourself are. There's soil and teal blood in your stubby nails, but the ashy radiance of the dream bubble's encasement reflects in slivers on your fingernails and on the edges of your red shades.

“Look who is here, Tez,” Eridan lightens up.

There is, indeed, someone standing with the seadweller.

Karkat.

He's smiling at you.

...

You grin back.


End file.
